Sunday, December 27, 2009
And if we change which good people we live with, by Djemila Benhabib
Published in Le Soleil, December 9, 2009
In few words the author summarizes the campaign preceding the referendum: "Virtually the entire political class in Switzerland, the right to the left, ecologists to pastors, gauchos bosses, had led the way to call to vote no. We pulled the heavy artillery usual person appears for the ban has been accused of xenophobic, racist, intolerant and Islamophobic .. "
The image of this small and rich enclave in the heart of Europe known for its fondue, raclette its, chocolate, and envied around the world for its ski resorts and peaceful lakes, which are mirrored landscapes and gardens bucolic, would it changing? What about his human flora? The Swiss have they mutated biological accelerated to celebrate the two hundredth anniversary of Darwin's theory of evolution? The Swiss, normally so "pragmatic" to ignite four minarets? Would they simply cowards or more courageous? And they were neither one nor the other? Could they simply fear that the meteoric rise of political Islamism around the world and especially in Europe?
One thing is certain, the Swiss have just created a precedent dealt a blow to the popular folk policy. In fact, their overwhelming vote to ban minarets is not so much a victory of the extreme right a political defeat, unable to refocus the debate on the fundamental values of democracy, namely secularism, l Equality between men and women and equal opportunities. It is clear that this vote reflects a difference of more and deeper between the right people and right-minded elite who swallows, this time very difficult, the pill. Does this mean annul the vote as some claim? And why do not people change? What is thought?
The straw and the beam ...
Yet everything had been put in place so that we "vote right". Virtually the entire political class in Switzerland, the right to the left, ecologists to pastors, gauchos bosses, had led the way to call to vote no. We pulled the heavy artillery usual person appears for the ban has been accused of xenophobic, racist, intolerant and Islamophobic. Some allies have even been called in reinforcements: Ambassador of the Organization of Islamic Conference (OIC) is invited to campaign for the "no" after being roundly criticized Switzerland. What has been told the journalist Vincent Pellegrini: "That's really the story of one who sees the mote in the eye of the neighbor and not the beam in his own"! The OIC, where swarm dictatorships and Islamic theocracies, who led a fierce campaign to roll back around the world - and the United Nations in particular - the rights of women and homosexuals, who does everything to reduce the freedom expression and conscience in the name of respect for religions, traditions and cultures, has leapt to defend democracy in Switzerland.
During the campaign, the good people was careful to express their feelings. Mum's the word. Anyway, why bother? For well-meaning, the problem is simple: how the existence of four minarets it threatens the peace of the Swiss? It sounded Jean Charest speaking accommodate the Company's automobile insurance and Quebec (SAAQ) and its Bill 16 or Françoise David, who defends the body and soul the Islamic headscarf in public service in Quebec FFQ or who, hand in hand with Muslim presence, is leading the campaign. Take a tour to Iran and see how much freedom women have in an Islamic theocracy, even in Algeria, which frankly does not look like the land of the mullahs and the plight of women is unenviable. At least for the right people is clear. We can not reduce democracy to a grocer's accounting.
Ugliness and cowardice ...
Whether the burqa in France, the four minarets in Switzerland, in some cases to accommodate the SAAQ or the wearing of religious symbols in the Quebec public service, we can not reduce its many manifestations to "epiphenomena , micro-problems or to perceptions." Everyone knows that the problem lies elsewhere. Numerous studies, reports and books show that Switzerland has been infested with Islamists and that to Geneva as political Islam of the Muslim Brotherhood has an address sponsored by Said Ramadan, which is none other than the son of founder of the Muslim Brotherhood, Hassan al-Banna and the father of Tariq Ramadan. The first Islamic center - one in Geneva - has been a model for many Islamic centers established since the early 1960s in Europe with the support of Saudi Arabia. Switzerland will in effect assume a dual role in the Islamist strategy: that of "safe" and instead preferred to their propaganda. From that nobody wants to talk. Neither the policy nor the "right-thinking", as it was named Elizabeth Badinter. To the good people, the beauty of the minarets could not hide the ugliness or speeches which are held or the cowardice and especially not the complicity of the right-thinking. May only the good people be heard!
Djemila Benhabib, author of My life cons-Quran (VLB éditeur), winner of the French writers of America and finalist Governor General's Award in 2009.
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Labels: Djemila Benhabib, Europe, Islam, Religion and fanaticism, Secularism
# posted by Francis Chartrand @ 9:23 PM 
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